PICKLED ONIONS KEEP ME ALIVE
Student says eating two jars a day eases disease symptoms
A MEDICAL student says eating two jars of pickled onions every day has saved her from a crippling condition.
Rachel Bolwell was seriously ill with Addison’s disease. But she now “feels amazing” – and she’s convinced that’s down to the pickles.
The 20-year-old said: “I eat about two jars of pickled onions a day. It’s the strongest, chip shop pickled onions you can get.
“It’s pretty odd but I see a big difference after eating them.”
Addison’s is a disorder that stops the adrenal glands producing vital hormones.
Sufferers are unable to take up enough salt from their blood through their kidneys.
St Andrews University student Rachel said Addison’s can cause her to feel incredibly tired, confused and dizzy.
But since she started eating pickles, she is able to “function at about 70 per cent on normal days” .
She added: “I’ve always liked salty things. When I was younger, I used to eat stock cubes, which is pretty unusual.
“The tendency has become more intense recently.”
The student, from Lochgilphead, Argyll, added: “Recently, I accidentally spilled boiling water on my hand and I got a real shock.
“With Addison’s disease, any kind of stress to your body is very hard to bounce back from, so I felt rubbish. But I just ate a whole jar of pickled onions and took some of my medicine and I felt much better.
“If I eat too much, though, I end up with the pickle sweats.”
Rachel was diagnosed with Addison’s in 2016 after she lost a lot of weight, started suffering panic attacks and developed hyper-pigmentation on her skin. She said: “I went to the doctor to get checked and mentioned the disease.
“I had a phone call that evening asking me to go in at 7am for tests as it was really serious.”
Rachel had been due to go for an unrelated operation the next morning but doctors stopped her in her tracks.
She said: “They said there was no way I could go.
“Anaesthetic interacts with the part of my body that doesn’t function due to the disease. “So if I hadn’t known at that point, I would have gone into the operation and I wouldn’t have come back out.”
Rachel struggled for years with severe sickness before she was diagnosed.
She added: “At the beginning, people told me I was anorexic, that I was a teenager who didn’t eat enough and who was stressed because I was studying.
“I would really like for people to understand a bit more about the disease as it is quite rare.
“Thirty young women die every year from undiagnosed Addison’s. If even one doctor could pick it out in one person, then that’s amazing. I nearly lost my life to it several times, so I’m very aware of that.”
I eat about two jars a day of the strongest chip shop pickles
RACHEL BOLWELL